Venice, the Grand Canal, looking North from the Palazzo Rezzonico to the Palazzo Balbi

‌In the age of the Grand Tour and the Enlightenment, Canaletto made the clear, radiant light of Venice celebrated beyond the frontiers of Italy. Recorded by Constable (loc. cit.) as a version by Canaletto, this picture was likely painted by the artist’s studio from one of a set of twenty-two views and two larger festival subjects made for the collection of John, 4th Duke of Bedford at Woburn Abbey, with most if not all the pictures completed by 1736. The artist’s scintillating and romantic impressions of the city also offered a spectrum of anecdotal scenes of everyday Venetian life, giving a glimpse into both contemporary fashions and the seasons depicted.
Bathed in the morning sun, the Palazzo Moro Lin to the right here radiates against the natural light, alongside the faded and discolored plasterwork of houses that would later be pulled down for the building of the Palazzo Grassi. In contrast, the Ca'Rezzonico at left and the Palazzo Balbi beyond sit in deep shadow, unobtrusively giving the picture coherence, with the evocative, fugitive quality of the light reminiscent of Canaletto’s work of the mid-twenties. While mainly following the Woburn prime, the artist here includes less of the sky in favor of the foreground, slightly expanding on the surrounding buildings to create a more enclosed figural composition. The season may perhaps be late spring, when the shadows are long and the atmosphere tranquil and sedate, with only a few gondolas and sailboats peppering the waters of the canal, itself painted in an irregular, webbed pattern that opposes the froth of the sky, animated by the darkest shadows and brightest highlights of the sun. While the foreground boatmen and gondoliers emerge from shadow to begin their day, the campanile of the Frari and S. Toma in the distance already stand in the full light of the morning.